


Home

by ellisfifellis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Getting Together, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 22:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellisfifellis/pseuds/ellisfifellis
Summary: “Lance.” He closes his eyes, sighs, and then, finally, makes eye contact. She smiles, just a little; comforting, not pitying. “I may not be human, but I know what crying is. My biology is not so different from yours.”~❇️~Allura and Lance find common ground.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii. basically, this was for a zine (Cotton Candy: Heart, ie. @allurancezine on twitter) but we realised two of us wrote similar pieces so i'm posting this here and doing a new one! i hope you enjoy 

Lance misses home. This is a fact that has become clear over the past year or so of saving the universe. He misses the place he belonged, where everyone was loud and fun and flirtatious, where everyone fought, sulked then came back because they were too lonely, the tides of the bay ebbing out and in, out and in, over and over. He misses the blues of the sea, the sky, the artificially-coloured coconut ice cream from the stand on the beach. If he had to describe the feeling of ‘home’ in a single word, he would choose blue.

This is why he’s upset. Blue has always been a warm color to him. The Blue Lion, in turn, has always been a warm place. She makes him feel safe and loved and wanted. She’s what he was destined for, and where he’s meant to be. If he can’t say goodbye to his family, maybe at least he can say goodbye to her. He pleads, and pleads, and pleads. “Please.” One more time. _Let me in one more time._ “You let me in before. Let me in again. Please, Blue.”

Allura enters silently, the _whoosh_ of closing doors as gentle as her footsteps, though she’s sure, when she spots Lance by Blue’s left paw, that he would not have noticed anyway, too embroiled in… crying? He was crying?

“Lance?” He glances at her from the corner of his eye as he turns away from her. He’s hiding his face. His arms glide up, slowing slightly when his hands pass his eyes, and his arms move almost imperceptibly for just a tick before continuing upwards, finalising in a languid-seeming stretch before he turns around. His eyes are red, and his cheeks have a barely-visible shine to them. He sniffles.

“Hi, Princess,” he says, and his voice is shaky. He must notice, because he clears his throat as Allura cautiously walks towards him. “Just, uh, hanging out with my girl Blue! Like old times. Right, girl?” He looks up at the lion with a slight smile but it disappears when he looks down again. He hasn’t met Allura’s eyes yet.

“Lance.” He closes his eyes, sighs, and then, finally, makes eye contact. She smiles, just a little; comforting, not pitying. “I may not be human, but I know what crying is. My biology is not so different from yours.” The corner of his mouth twitches, and his lips part, speech just behind his teeth when, suddenly, his chest shakes, and his eyes water and his knees begin to buckle and Allura, too used to the need for fast reactions, rushes to support him. He is surprisingly heavy for such a skinny boy, and Allura can do nothing but lower him down next to her so that they both rest with their backs on the paw of the great lion.

Lance sobs into her shoulder. She feels it as his shoulders tremble under her arm, and as his tears soak through the material of her dress. She cannot tell, at all, what has made him break like this, and she doesn’t pry. Whatever sharp thing that had shattered inside him is forcing its way out in streams, paining him, hurting him. She knows what this feels like. She knows what happens when a facade brakes.

“I- I’m- I’m so _sorry_ , Allura-”

“Shh, Lance. Shhh. Just rest for a moment. Tell me when you’re ready.”

He cries, and cries, then cries a little slower, and Allura, for lack of somewhere else comfortable to put her hand, begins to gently thread her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck. His breathing halts, and she nearly withdraws from the touch, but before she can Lance has covered her hand with his.

“It’s nice,” he says, the first thing out of his mouth that isn’t sobs for what seems like an eon. She sighs, a gentle output of breath that stirs fine hairs on the top of Lance’s head. Those two words open his mouth for him, begin working his tongue and lips into speech, a stream of tears replaced by thoughts.

“I just. I always belonged with my family, right? They’ve always been there. I’ve always fit, perfectly, in. And I went to the Garrison, and then here, and I’ve never fit in. I have Hunk and Pidge, but they both go on tangents about science I don’t understand, and when I try to get a word in they just… stare at me. I have Shiro and Keith, but they’ve both know each other for longer, and Keith winds me up inside like, I don’t know. When you try to dry a towel and it goes all tense and twisted, and I never had his raw talent. And Shiro’s always doing something bigger and more important than hanging out with me. But I always had Blue, y’know? She felt like home. She chose _me_ , right off the bat. She was my home away from home.

“And then… she rejected me. She chose you. Which is fine, by the way. You’re wonderful as her paladin, and she likes you, and you respect her. It’s just that I thought we had something special. I know I have the Red Lion now, but. It feels like I’m trying to fit into shoes that are a little too big. Like a hand-me-down the you never liked, and didn’t suit you, and was too big for you but your parents insisted you wear it because it saved money and ‘doesn’t that look dashing on you’ and ‘you’ll grow into them! Don’t worry.’ It’s all… a bit much. It’s all a bit too much.”

Allura sits, silent for a moment, fingers idling still in his hair. She doesn’t understand what he means. He seems to have been making oddly specific references, but they didn’t properly make them any clearer for her; although, she supposed, this was more to make Lance’s feelings clearer to _him_ , so she didn’t mind too much.

“I… I may not know specifically what you’re going through, Lance, but I often feel similarly.” Finally, he raises his head, but it is just to look at her in confusion. Her lips quirk at the little furrow between his eyebrows, the dimple of his befuddled mouth. He makes the same expression any time she uses Altean jargon. “I, too, lost my family. No, no, don’t try to apologise. We’re in a similar situation. I’m just glad you have a family to return to, one day. My father used to tell me I would be a great leader. He would say that I am just like my mother, that I hold all her magical gifts and kindness, and that the people would love me more than they ever loved him. I… struggle to live up to this, every day. I wonder if he would be proud.”

“Of course he would,” Lance says, and the sincerity in his voice and in his expression makes Allura’s heart jump.

“Thank you, Lance. Not only that, but I feel… distanced from the rest of the team. I am not from Earth, and I am an addition, not one of the original five. I cannot fly as well, I am not used to it, and I don’t know if I am good enough — or whether I will ever be good enough. And… I understand that on the surface our problems seem different, but they have much in common. We miss our families, and the places where we belong. But… perhaps we could… belong. Together.”

There is a brief, heavy pause, before Lance says, “That was really cheesy. And really cute.” And then suddenly, he’s kissing her.

Allura isn’t used to it. Altean relationships are based upon years of mutual courtship; her and Lance have known each other for a fraction of that. All of his flirtations have felt, to her, half-joking, superficial, the same as the way he acts to other alien women. She hasn’t noticed, while she’s been thinking, that she has been following Lance’s lead, lips against lips, moving just slightly, her hand lingering in his hair, his fingers touching the edge of her hairline just below her ear as he cups her face. Allura pulls away, slowly, and looks at Lance’s closed eyes and just-pink lips. He opens his eyes. The way he blinks reminds her of when he first woke from the cryopod, dark lashes parting to crystal blue clarity, pushing the fogginess out of his eyes. When he looks at her, properly looks at her, he recoils.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says, scrambling away. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Lance.” Allura reaches out, wrapping her fingers around his arm, and when he tries to slip out of her grasp, she holds him firmly so that he looks at her again, eyes red with the threat of new tears. She takes in a breath, holds it, closes her eyes, opens them and says, “It was nice.”

He stops. Blinks. Stares, and tilts his head just a little. “What?”

“It was nice. Must I repeat myself more?”

“But you- you always…”

“Assumed your flirtatious nature was just a part of you, and I was the first woman in space that you saw? Yes. I never knew you were serious about any of it. You flirt with others all the time.”

“I… only because I thought you didn’t want it. I thought I was wasting my time and I tried to move on.” He turns to face her, and Allura relaxes her grip, leaving her hand resting against his forearm. His eyes are trained on her.

“I did not want it then, Lance. Alteans have a different system to humans. We spend a long time, at least a decapheeb, creating a friendship before even considering beginning a romantic relationship.”

“You have more time.”

“Precisely.

“So… you said you didn’t want it _then_?”

Allura opens her mouth, then closes it. Yes, she supposes, she did say that.

Lance guesses her thoughts as if he can read them. “You’ve… changed your mind?”

“I- I…” There’s been a switch of situation. Allura is caught off-guard, now, by her own thoughts, trapped by her unconscious choice of words. “Lance-”

“Hey, hey. Don’t worry, okay? I’m not gonna push anything. Especially if you aren’t sure.” Lance is being unexpectedly gentle, Allura thinks, considering that he’s been gunning for her since day one. “Even if you…” He makes a face, like he’s tried one of Hunk’s new alien concoctions. “Even if you end up with _Keith_. I don’t know how that would happen, because he’s a jerk, but if it did, I wouldn’t be mad, or keep trying.”

She stares at him for a moment. Within these few moments, they’ve revealed their weakest points to each other, shown each other their vulnerabilities, and kissed. In such a short time. Allura had been asleep for ten thousand years, surviving past even the oldest of their race. It would take some time for her to get used to… whatever this was.

“Thank you, Lance. I…” He watches her intently, but not expectantly. There is no outcome set in his mind. “I just need time to think it over. Let me think it over.” He nods.

Slowly, they stand, helping each other up until they are upright. Their hands linger together. Allura looks at them a moment, squeezes his fingers in hers, and slowly, slowly, as if Lance were an easily-frightened animal, moves her face closer to his, kissing him softly on his cheek before moving away. She sees the pink rise on his cheeks and knows that the same is happening to her.

“I’ll leave you here for a moment more. You and Blue still need a little alone time.” The corner of his mouth - _his mouth, his mouth, the mouth I just kissed,_ she thinks - twitches up a little. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Goodbye, Princess,” Lance says, and it feels somehow the same as the kiss on the cheek did. She smiles at him before turning to leave. As she exits the door, she glances back at him; he is watching her leave, a wistful look on his face. The whoosh of the door signals her exit the same way it did her entrance. But somehow, she knows that everything is different.


End file.
